By John Helmer in Moscow These days investors in gold-mining stocks are behaving like diners in fashionable restaurants, subject to the same fitful appetites. On Tuesday, for example, they sold Highland Gold (HGM:LN) down 21%. But on Wednesday, they bought it up by 20%. Highland is now trading at its all-time low since listing in […]

By John Helmer in Moscow Coal mining in Russia is a dirty business, and mine company finances are a black box. If the coal mines lose money, as they claim in recent financial reports, that could be because the coal is being priced for purchase by the steel company which consumes it, and also controls […]

By John Helmer in Moscow One of the greatest of the English humourists, writing under the pen-name of Saki, once opened a tale of a disastrous horse-ride with the observation that one of the characters “was looking about as pale as a beetroot that has suddenly heard bad news”. To aficionadoes of Saki, the wit […]

By John Helmer in Moscow Base metals – Twelve lines that may make Rusal’s Deripaska a poor man LONDON RULINGTwelve lines that may make Rusal’s Deripaska a poor man John HelmerDisclosure of the Chernoy-Deripaska agreement confirms US charge, and could put London share listing in doubt.MOSCOW In twelve brief lines of less than impeccable Russian, […]

By John Helmer in Moscow Morgan Stanley has taken the plunge for its first-ever public investor offer of loan notes on behalf of a Russian maritime business — the Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port. The bank is also touting for business as financial advisor to a possible initial public offering of shares for Russia’s two state […]

By John Helmer An out of court settlement has been reached between Oleg Deripaska and his Russian Aluminium (Rusal) group, and Avaz Nazarov and a group of firms associated with the Tajikistan Aluminium Plant (TadAZ). The confidential deal was announced on Friday in London by law firm Clyde & Co, which has represented Nazarov and […]

By John Helmer in Moscow Oleg Deripaska is under unexpected personal pressure, at home and abroad, just when his plan to take control of one of the largest bauxite and aluminium producers in the world is close to final government approval. And that is exactly why the trouble for Deripaska is growing now. Russian government […]

By John Helmer in Moscow The decision of the Estonian government to remove the city’s Soviet war memorial and the graves of Red Army soldiers who fell in the last war against Germany has been an on/off thing for months. Now that it’s on, clashes between protesters and supporters, have already cost one life (Russian); […]

By John Helmer in Moscow Never complain, never explain — that was the advice of the worst loser in modern American politics, Richard Nixon. Norilsk Nickel, the lead mining company of Russia and biggest nickel producer in the world, appears not to understand how to lose, now that its bid for LionOre has been topped […]

By John Helmer in Moscow It’s a pity Vladimir Lenin was tone deaf, and dismissed music (along with chess) as an entertainment for the ruling class. Had he an ear and taste for classical music (like Karl Marx, who was keen on Beethoven, and Leon Trotsky, who loved Verdi), he might have devised a revolutionary […]